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[werothegreat]

Is it Atlantis, El Dorado, or Shangri-la?  You decide.

It's the vanilla-est card in the set!
-How does it compare to Lab?  How about normal City?
-How does the penalty compare to Council Room's penalty?
-Do you only want a couple, or do you want to contest the pile?
-Would this have been balanced at without the penalty?

[iguanaiguana]

-How does it compare to Lab?  How about normal City?
-How does the penalty compare to Council Room's penalty?
-Do you only want a couple, or do you want to contest the pile?
-Would this have been balanced at without the penalty?

Depends on the board.

[faust]

Expert players will be able to utilize the on-gain part as an attack to make your opponent's key cards miss the shuffle.

[Eran of Arcadia]

-Would this have been balanced at without the penalty?

Maybe . . . but it would be less fun.

[shark_bait]

-Would this have been balanced at without the penalty?

Maybe . . . but it would be less fun.

Once my wife Swindled my Duchy into a Lost City on the last turn of the game, giving her an extra card allowing her to get to more of her juicy actions/treasures in hand.  She still fell a bit short of stealing the win but oh man, I really thought that might have done it for her.

[Chris is me]

Comparing Lost City to Council Room is a bit off since Lost City is a one time penalty and then you have an extremely good card in your deck the entire game. On many boards, with weak draw or decent trashing, Lost City makes engines super viable and robust. When it's viable, it's going to be a pile you need to win the split for to win the game, not a one-off nice card to have or something.

[werothegreat]

Comparing Lost City to Council Room is a bit off since Lost City is a one time penalty

But that's exactly the point.  How does Lost City's one-time penalty compare to Council Room's every-play penalty?

[Chris is me]

Comparing Lost City to Council Room is a bit off since Lost City is a one time penalty

But that's exactly the point.  How does Lost City's one-time penalty compare to Council Room's every-play penalty?

In short, it makes you think about when you buy the card sometimes, but it's not nearly enough of a penalty to dissuade you from reaping its benefits in games where you need either draw or a village. If you need both, it's a race to drain the pile. I'm certainly buying it more than I'm buying regular City.

[AdrianHealey]

I actually find the penalty underwhelming. I'd still buy it if it was 6 with that penalty.

[Davio]

The trick is not buying Lost Cities, it's balancing LC gains with other powerful $5+ cards you want to buy.

[Donald X.]

I'd still buy it if it was 6 with that penalty.

That isn't really saying anything. $6 is harder to get than $5. But without extra buys, they both cost your buy, and passing up on the other things you could have had. The game is better when $5's can compete with Gold, so it's no surprise that Lost City can compete there. Most games the only other more-than-$5 option is Province, and you don't always want Province.

Really the competition is the +Buy card you could have instead. Say there's Woodcutter. You have $10. Well what you want is Lost City but maybe it's time for that Woodcutter. But maybe you drew all but one card in your deck - your Woodcutter. Okay, $10 for Lost City.

The penalty lets the card cost $5, and is fun. Of course you would pay more. And sometimes you will. The cards aren't costed based on the maximum amount you would pay for them.

[AdrianHealey]

I understand in general that this is the case (e.g. Chapel), but it does kind of causes the question: why not in this particular case?

But I think I understand where it's coming from. I hope I do, in any case.

[Donald X.]

I understand in general that this is the case (e.g. Chapel), but it does kind of causes the question: why not in this particular case?

But I think I understand where it's coming from. I hope I do, in any case.

I don't understand your question.

[Roadrunner7671]

I think Lost City compares well to Embassy, but Lost City is a lot more OP.

[dedicateddan]

Lost city is village + lab. The drawback is minor, and you generally want a lot of them

It's a strong card at 5 and I would buy it at 6 with or without the penalty

[Mavy2k]

I would probably contest the card on most boards. The extra card for your opponent seems like no big deal.
I think the card is even better with junking attacks on the board. Ambassador and Mountebank are the first that come to mind. The extra card wonīt matter really, because itīs probably junk anyway and the card is a village to play 2 of these cards a turn AND helps you getting to these faster.

And the first player to get this card seems to be at a slight advantage, because the next buy helps the other player to draw this card.

Ghost Ship has a nice synergy with this card, but I am not sure when I would choose Ghost Ship over this card. But it would be nice to play a Ghost Ship and then buy 2 Lost Cities.

[Limetime]

I would probably contest the card on most boards. The extra card for your opponent seems like no big deal.
I think the card is even better with junking attacks on the board. Ambassador and Mountebank are the first that come to mind. The extra card wonīt matter really, because itīs probably junk anyway and the card is a village to play 2 of these cards a turn AND helps you getting to these faster.

And the first player to get this card seems to be at a slight advantage, because the next buy helps the other player to draw this card.

Ghost Ship has a nice synergy with this card, but I am not sure when I would choose Ghost Ship over this card. But it would be nice to play a Ghost Ship and then buy 2 Lost Cities.

I would definitely get ghost ship before lost cities. If I open silver silver the extra actions are a whole lot worse than the attack for at least two more shuffles.

[Jack Rudd]

Play Lost City
Procession a Feast, gaining 3 Lost Cities
Play Ghost Ship

Muhahahahahaha

[Mavy2k]

I would probably contest the card on most boards. The extra card for your opponent seems like no big deal.
I think the card is even better with junking attacks on the board. Ambassador and Mountebank are the first that come to mind. The extra card wonīt matter really, because itīs probably junk anyway and the card is a village to play 2 of these cards a turn AND helps you getting to these faster.

And the first player to get this card seems to be at a slight advantage, because the next buy helps the other player to draw this card.

Ghost Ship has a nice synergy with this card, but I am not sure when I would choose Ghost Ship over this card. But it would be nice to play a Ghost Ship and then buy 2 Lost Cities.

I would definitely get ghost ship before lost cities. If I open silver silver the extra actions are a whole lot worse than the attack for at least two more shuffles.

I canīt even recall 1% of games where I opened Silver/Silver. There is always an edge case, but most of the time you could put that extra action to some use.

[Limetime]

I would probably contest the card on most boards. The extra card for your opponent seems like no big deal.
I think the card is even better with junking attacks on the board. Ambassador and Mountebank are the first that come to mind. The extra card wonīt matter really, because itīs probably junk anyway and the card is a village to play 2 of these cards a turn AND helps you getting to these faster.

And the first player to get this card seems to be at a slight advantage, because the next buy helps the other player to draw this card.

Ghost Ship has a nice synergy with this card, but I am not sure when I would choose Ghost Ship over this card. But it would be nice to play a Ghost Ship and then buy 2 Lost Cities.

I would definitely get ghost ship before lost cities. If I open silver silver the extra actions are a whole lot worse than the attack for at least two more shuffles.

I canīt even recall 1% of games where I opened Silver/Silver. There is always an edge case, but most of the time you could put that extra action to some use.

Opening silver/silver is a very commonly the best play.
I open silver/silver every time I want to get 5 first shuffle which is almost always true when both ghost ship and lost cities are in the supply.

[AJD]

Lost city is village + lab. The drawback is minor, and you generally want a lot of them

It's a strong card at 5 and I would buy it at 6 with or without the penalty

Lost City at 6 would be strictly worse than Border Village. 

[Roadrunner7671]

Lost city is village + lab. The drawback is minor, and you generally want a lot of them

It's a strong card at 5 and I would buy it at 6 with or without the penalty

Lost City at 6 would be strictly worse than Border Village. 

Buying a Border Village and gaining a Curse is strictly better than buting a Lost City with no penalty!

[dedicateddan]

Lost city is village + lab. The drawback is minor, and you generally want a lot of them

It's a strong card at 5 and I would buy it at 6 with or without the penalty

Lost City at 6 would be strictly worse than Border Village. 

Edge case: _____________

The proof is left as an exercise to the reader.

[jomini]

The biggest difference in terms of the penalties is when it hits. Outside of gains during your turn, which are relatively rare for $5s, you cannot just Gship away the bonus cards from when you buy them. Obviously this changes if we include Outpost, Mission, Possession or just have 3 players.

In practical terms, this means that you rarely see more than a single card or two of bonus draw at any given time. $15/3buys is pretty close to not needing more cities and your deck is likely pretty close to auto-drawing when your opponent gets there. This extra card is mostly going to:

A. Push you up a $1 in buying power. This can make Lost city a bit of a trap card if I get more $5s even if they are slightly less powerful than an activated city. My buys may be less powerful (say Bazaar), but I will get more of them (particularly if we are pairing them with other $5/6 buys like say Rabble or Hunting grounds).

B. Increase your mid-game reliability. Sure some setups, like Vault/Kc might have a big impact with one extra card, but generally once you are hitting $5 reliably the next price point to matter is $7 or $8 with 2 buys. Say you are fishing for one enabling card (like Village or Smithy) in 10, giving your opponents an extra card swaps them from 50% odds of hitting off the engine to something around 60%. I have not a found a good way to track this, but at some point that extra card will give the a significant leg up on getting multiple cards a turn from drawing half the deck. On the other hand, once he is drawing his whole deck, who cares how many he started with in hand (beyond some obvious Storeroom type setups).

Another pronounced effect of the penalty is with combos. Tr/Witch is one of those things that may make playing the odds bad, gaining 20% of an extra curse & being half a hand closer to a reshuffle is starting to be a big deal. Worse Tmap/Tmap & Urchin/Urchin you can see a very large increase in you. The penalty hurts you a lot more when your opponent is going for something that is not a draw engine that needs to line things up (e.g. Chapel/Bishop), preferably quickly

In general, I think Lost city is one of those rare draw cards that works best with other terminal draw. You can very quickly get through your deck, particularly if the other guy is buying the penalty for you and then start mixing in cards to ramp up sooner (or use them more aggressively to ramp up buying power sooner).

[GendoIkari]

Lost city is village + lab. The drawback is minor, and you generally want a lot of them

It's a strong card at 5 and I would buy it at 6 with or without the penalty

Lost City at 6 would be strictly worse than Border Village. 

Edge case: _____________

The proof is left as an exercise to the reader.

You don't need an edge case for this to not be true, it's quite often not true... I assume he's saying that because with the free gain you could gain a card that draws... but first off that depends on having such a card on the board, and second, you need to have the drawer in the same hand as Border Village (or on top of your deck). There's plenty of cases when Lost City is better.

[markusin]

Lost city is village + lab. The drawback is minor, and you generally want a lot of them

It's a strong card at 5 and I would buy it at 6 with or without the penalty

Lost City at 6 would be strictly worse than Border Village. 

Edge case: _____________

The proof is left as an exercise to the reader.

You don't need an edge case for this to not be true, it's quite often not true... I assume he's saying that because with the free gain you could gain a card that draws... but first off that depends on having such a card on the board, and second, you need to have the drawer in the same hand as Border Village (or on top of your deck). There's plenty of cases when Lost City is better.

"Why get Lost City when I can just get a Border Village and a Laboratory with one buy? Ahahahahaaaa!"

Oh wait...

[traces Around]

Yeah, there is a reason UCS has the U on it: a high number of +2 cards, +2 actions is usually enough to draw your deck and do whatever else you want.

I think the +1 card for opponent on buy is more of a "here, have another card so you may have a chance of not losing this split badly enough that you lose the game with it." With most power cards, they are a rich-get-richer-(and/or)-poor-get-poorer card. The low cost relative to quality and the gaining penalty assists in not letting the lost city split get out of control one way or the other.

[GendoIkari]

Yeah, there is a reason UCS has the U on it: a high number of +2 cards, +2 actions is usually enough to draw your deck and do whatever else you want.

I think the +1 card for opponent on buy is more of a "here, have another card so you may have a chance of not losing this split badly enough that you lose the game with it." With most power cards, they are a rich-get-richer-(and/or)-poor-get-poorer card. The low cost relative to quality and the gaining penalty assists in not letting the lost city split get out of control one way or the other.

Well partially. I think a big part of City's power is also in the +, +1 buy that you get when you drain a second pile.

Also, welcome!

[LibraryAdventurer]

Since I first saw lost city, I didn't (and still don't) think the on-buy drawback is enough to keep Lost City from being OP.

[Limetime]

Since I first saw lost city, I didn't (and still don't) think the on-buy drawback is enough to keep Lost City from being OP.

I don't think lost city is OP. It is way less powerful than SP, goons,kc,cursing attacks,chapel,forager,lookout,masq,FV, hunting grounds,wharf,rebuild.
It is just in the more powerful spectrum

[LibraryAdventurer]

Since I first saw lost city, I didn't (and still don't) think the on-buy drawback is enough to keep Lost City from being OP.

I don't think lost city is OP. It is way less powerful than SP, goons,kc,cursing attacks,chapel,forager,lookout,masq,FV, hunting grounds,wharf,rebuild.
It is just in the more powerful spectrum

Was reading your post and did a double take when I saw lookout. I can understand all those other cards (though I don't agree with all of them being on the list), but how can you say that Lookout is way more powerful than Lost City?

(BTW, Because of being OP, I play with a modded version of Rebuild and a very slightly modded version of Goons, and I never play with SP or KC IRL.)

[Limetime]

Since I first saw lost city, I didn't (and still don't) think the on-buy drawback is enough to keep Lost City from being OP.

I don't think lost city is OP. It is way less powerful than SP, goons,kc,cursing attacks,chapel,forager,lookout,masq,FV, hunting grounds,wharf,rebuild.
It is just in the more powerful spectrum

Was reading your post and did a double take when I saw lookout. I can understand all those other cards (though I don't agree with all of them being on the list), but how can you say that Lookout is way more powerful than Lost City?

(BTW, Because of being OP, I play with a modded version of Rebuild and a very slightly modded version of Goons, and I never play with SP or KC IRL.)

Because lookout is only slightly worse than forager. THis podcast explains why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhTDFmuTqr0

[GendoIkari]

I've heard that Lookout is far stronger than Ambassador.

[Titandrake]

I've heard that Lookout is far stronger than Ambassador.

silverspawn has since recognized this was a dumb position

To be fair, Lookout is a lot better than it looks.

[terminalCopper]

[..] It is way less powerful than forager,lookout

I still don't get how people can be so sure when comparing apples and oranges, i.e. a 3-cost-trasher and a 5-cost-village. To me, it sounds like stating with self-confidence "Messi is way better than Obama. And obviously, Picasso is OP".

[Davio]

Usually, you buy Villages for $4- and more powerful cards like terminal drawers Wharf, Torturer and Margrave for $5+.

With Lost City, you can turn this around, buy useful terminals like Smithies, Monuments, etc for $4- and your Village/Labs for $5.